


Flirting is a Part of Wartime Strategy

by tardiis



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M, Translation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-07
Updated: 2020-09-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:07:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26339266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tardiis/pseuds/tardiis
Summary: When Captain America and the Winter Solider wrestle like rutting bunnies on the battlefield, everyone,everyone, feels bothered by it, no matter you are a S.H.I.E.L.D or a Hydra.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26





	Flirting is a Part of Wartime Strategy

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [战场调情是战略的一部分](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/679738) by 甘四十二味/Audrey Poe. 



* * *

1.

Despite everything, Steve, gazing straight forward, insists on what he has to say. “It’s strategy.”

“Strategy?” Nick almost bursts out laughing. He points at Hawkeye, who is currently covering his head wound with a bag of frozen peas, looking innocent and wronged. “I don’t know what was going on in there, but look, Barton-”

_“-My head is seriously hurting-”_

_“Shut up, Barton. This has nothing to do with you. Not everything is about you.”_

_“What?”_

Steve blushes, explaining himself. “It was to capture him. Like I said, strategy.”

“Guys, enough,” Tony cuts in. “Let’s see the recording.”

They turn their eyes to the big screen; a piece of video footage begins playing.

It’s a battlefield footage. Everything is shaking. Explosion sounds in the back along with a few shouts of “Hail Hydra!” and the sound of the Hydra soldiers being stroke down right after. The film photographer whispers to his fellow men, “After this, if there is still no pay raise…”

And then, Hawkeye walks over. He smiles, says hi to the camera, and begins to fight alongside with the photographer.

That goes on for a while.

Suddenly, Hawkeye looks up and says, “Something is wrong with the Cap’s voice. Let’s go check.” The camera shakes a few times, and several men follow Hawkeye to go searching for the warehouse that the Cap might be in. As time goes by, Hawkeye’s face turns sternly as ever.

“The Cap sounds like he’s in a lot of pain,” he says in a serious tone.

“Where is the Cap-” Before the photographer can finish the word, Hawkeye shushes him, who then turns around, and stealthily walks into a half-shut warehouse. The photographer turns to their men with a puzzled look on his face. After a short discussion, they agree on the menace of the situation and that they should go in as back up right now.

A few agents with guns are making moves towards the warehouse, the camera following them. Before they can get a good look of what’s inside, they bump into Hawkeye who runs out of there.

“Don’t go in!” Hawkeye screams. “Don’t! Don’t! They are-” He bumps his way out, waving his arms in the air. He didn’t forget to grab the peeping photographer along with him. But due to panic, he trips on the threshold and falls to the ground. The camera shakes and eventually falls down too. The footage ends with Hawkeye’s back view as he pulls himself up and runs out of sight while shouting “Don’t go in!”

Steve looks like, the blush has spread down to his chest.

“I don’t know what you were doing in there.” Nick folds his arms in front of his chest. “And I don’t want to know. But after Barton ran away, a few curious agents went inside too, and they came out tripping on that threshold. Two of them having bruises-Hum. Maybe the threshold does need to go.”

“Hey Rogers, maybe you need to take it down a notch.”

Steve facepalms.

Tony laughs like Christmas is upon him and he has an extra tooth to sell for pocket money. “Oh. _Oh_. I know what we can print on this year’s cards for Valentine at Stark Industry. We will go with this. ‘Don’t go in!’ – Love from your horrified Avenger, Hawkeye. That’s awesome. Truly. Thank you, Cap.”

“Don’t push it,” Clint says bitterly, “or you will be next, Tony.”

* * *

2.

This time, it’s a perfectly planned mission. Viper is having a party in the city. Even if Hawkeye insisted that Captain America should stay in the base, the Captain comes anyway. Steve Rogers, a strong willed, agile, generically programmed super soldier, shows no mercy to the over confident Hydra minions on the battlefield.

Until Hydra sent in the Winter Soldier as back up.

“Uh. Cap? A little help here? I am surrounded!” Tony shouts from a distance not so far away.

Steve just keeps on hitting a Hydra minion while fixing his eyes on the Winter Soldier.

“You are attacking my people,” the Winter Soldier says in a hoarse voice.

“Yeah?” Steve smiles. “So what are you going to do about it?”

The Winter Soldier grabs the Hydra soldier’s feet and pulls him towards his direction. Steve stares at the Winter Soldier and lets out a muffled sound.

_“Ah, of course! I am okay! Beaten by five of those enhanced super soldiers at the same time is nothing! Don’t mind me here. You guys do continue.”_

Steve pulls the Hydra soldier’s head back, and gives him another punch.

“You…You disobedient bad girl…” The Winter Soldier squints his eyes, looking at Steve.

Between them, the Hydra soldier painfully questions his existence and what on earth has he done wrong to deserve this while getting punched.

Steve whispers, “So what are you going to do about this bad girl?”

And then, one punch from the Captain, another punch from the Winter Soldier, _slowly_ , they begin to beat the shit out of the Hydra soldier while maintaining eye contact the whole time.

_Not so far away, due to confusion, five enhanced Hydra super soldiers take back their fists on the Iron Man. The six of them can’t make sense of the situation._

* * *

3.

The next mission. A total accident. Anyhow, when Captain America comes back, his pants went missing. His shield shows up in front of the S.H.I.E.L.D building the next day. No one knows anything about it. No one wants to dig deeper into this. Because no one wants to look at Steve straight in the eyes. Because Steve is basically a symbol for justice and decency, and any thoughts that could prove otherwise just seem despicable and wrong.

* * *

4.

Before the mission, for the first time in the Avenger history, Bruce is going to do the pep talk.

The respectful and kind scientist’s face turns slightly green due to shyness. He takes out a condom to show everyone how to use it.

“This is for you and me. It’s for us,” he says. But he locks eyes with Steve the entire time.

That is when everyone realizes just how far this thing has gone.

* * *

5.

The Winter Soldier sits in the medical room in the Hydra base, waiting for a repair on his metal arm.

“- I don’t know what you’ve done, soldier. Broken arm? I can understand that. But how did you break your fingers?” Pierce asks furiously.

The Winter Soldier blinks. “Because water got into them.”

A technician coughs. “A large amount of lubricant, sir. He thrusts his fingers into a large amount of lubricant.”

The Winter Soldier turns to look at the technician as if he has just betrayed his trust. He turns around, and puts on the most innocent face that any brainwashed heartless killing machine can put on, and says, “I had to pick up my knife from a large barrel of lubricant.”

“On the battlefield? A large barrel of lubricant? What, does Stark want to drown us with it?”

The Winter Soldier nods agreeingly. “Maybe Stark is that evil, sir.”

* * *

6.

“You know,” a Hydra soldier walks into the Winter Soldier’s rest room and says, “Why didn’t you just run away with Captain America?”

Then he adds, “All of us think that you can’t turn him for us, but you guys will definitely run away together someday. So why haven’t you? You’ve put on quite a lot of stress on Alexander these days.”

“I didn’t know that was an option,” the Winter Soldier says, looking stunned.

“Wait, so you guys never talked about the future? Like, you guys had more sex than a whole street combined. A promise at least?”

The Winter Soldier’s face turns blank.

“Oh god. So Captain America never even gave you a promise? That asshole! Next time I see him, I will find a way to kick his ass.”

“We never had sex,” eventually he says.

Now the Hydra soldier feels like an idiot. “Uh, what?”

“We never had sex. Those are your own thoughts.”

“But, uh, the war of Potomac River? You were drained and passed out for two days after?”

“The fight was exhausting.”

“The shield you brought back that time?”

“A mistake.”

“Wha-Wait, the time you disappeared a whole day, and you came back with the same clothes but no bullets were fired?”

A puzzled frown crosses his face. “I got lost. I didn’t even arrive at front line.”

“Damn it,” The Hydra soldier talks to himself, “Now there is going to be new bets.”

* * *

7.

For no apparent reason, the Winter Soldier shows up at a fight against A.I.M, like his only purpose of being there is to flirt with the Cap.

Even though they are fighting, but the scene is too…graphic to the eye, so everyone else, Hydra, S.H.I.E.L.D, and the A.I.M scientists who are trying to escape, all keep their head up high and try to avoid their fighting area.

The Winter Soldier’s legs are squeezing the Captain’s neck, who struggles and tries to sweep off the person on him. He then grabs the Winter Soldier’s arm and smacks his body on the ground, who retaliates by growling and sweeping Steve down, again, and beating him swiftly.

“Oh! What’s wrong with you?” Steve dodges a fist and asks.

“Can I go with you?” the Winter Soldier fiercely shouts.

“What?”

“Can I go with you?” the Winter Soldier repeats.

Steve looks at him. “Uh…” he says. And then, he runs away.

* * *

8.

“Huh. This is new. Are all your days this fun?” An A.I.M agent turns his head to a S.H.I.E.L.D agent and a Hydra soldier who are fighting with each other and asks.

* * *

9.

“What’s going on over there?” Vivian, a Hydra girl who walked to the wrong booth at job fair at university, calls her old roommate, a S.H.I.E.L.D agent.

“ _Say Anything_ and ice cream. I think someone gave the Cap the wrong idea. You?”

“Heavy metal, mixed with Tyler Swift. Dark talks. Lots. He even gave himself a black nail polish.”

“I think you won.”

Vivian lets out an extremely heavy sigh.

“I think when Red Skull gave the order to initiate the Winter Soldier program, this is not what he had in mind.”

“And when we dig the Captain out of the ice, we thought he can at least keep his pants on!”

“So why are they not together yet? I mean, it looks like if they don’t do something to each other when they are in the same room, some higher power out there will make them self combust.”

“I feel you. If they don’t have sex soon, we simply can’t do our work. Is there any way-Oh God, I can’t believe I’m saying this, I’m trying to setup a date for Captain America and another man. Oh god. _Oh god_. Who am I? This is not what my mom raised me for.”

“There is nothing we _can_ do except for cleaning their messes. I mean, the Winter Soldier now asked us to call him the Ghost Rider. Damn it! Wait till I find the bastard who made him watch that movie, I’ll dig his grave for sure.”

“Vivian, you ever wondered that we might have gotten into the wrong business?”

“Every single day. _Every single fucking day._ ”

They sigh together.

* * *

10.

“Hey-”

In the end, Natasha takes on the challenge, because Natasha is the best. Everyone thinks that the Black Widow and the White Queen together can rule the world if they put their mind into it. Men are too stupid.

Steve curls into a ball under his comforter, holding a bag of Lay’s cheese and onion chips in his hand, eyes full of tears. Nat turns her head to the TV; _The Princess Bride_ is on. Wonderful. A masterpiece from the last century.

“How are you doing, Steve?” Nat asks softly, sitting besides Steve.

“I’m such an asshole,” Steve buries his head deep, and says with a muffled voice, “I broke Bucky’s heart! An agent told me that he is now so heartbroken that he listens to Tyler Swift every day.”

“About that… I’m not sure if you know the songs? It just seems like the Winter Soldier’s, uh, Bucky’s personal preference to me,” Nat says, “But if you regret it so much, why not go to him?”

“I can’t!” Steve looks up at her with the saddest puppy eyes ever.

“Why is that?”

“Because I’m not _the one_ for him. I can’t do this to him. What if he comes back with me and finds out I’m not the one he wants and he runs away? I can’t lose him again.”

“ _The one_ can be many, Steve. Like the one in the green apron, the one with the coffee, the one with the cute butt. I can go on. You know what I mean?”

“No, I don’t know what you mean.” Steve answers sadly.

Nat sighs. “There is no such thing as _the one_. The only way to know if a relationship works or not is you try it out. How could you know what a piece of sushi tastes like before you put it in your mouth?”

“But-What about-I can’t-”

Nat holds Steve’s face inside her palms. “Now, Steve _The-Weird-Thing-Is-I-Actually-Don’t-Know-Your-Middle-Name_ Rogers, you need to hold it together,” she continues, “Believe me when I say you guys are perfect for each other, okay? No one, I mean no one, would wrestle that long with their enemy on the battlefield. It’s not fighting, it’s flirting. Look at you! If you guys don’t go on a date that makes an old lady who believes in white supremacy curses and screams, God will punish everyone who didn’t try to set you guys up. That is how perfect you two are for each other.”

The slightly encouraged Steve asks, “Okay, so what should I do now?”

“Go to him! Tell him how you feel!”

“Yeah, right, I’m going right now, Nat.” Steve jumps up from the bed and puts on some pants. He looks around the room and sets his eyes on a gift-wrapped large pack of condoms. He then grabs the box and jumps out of the window.

“Huh. I was going to say that a romantic steak dinner would be nice.” Nat sits down on Steve’s sofa and starts eating his chips. “But this works too.”

* * *

11.

A week later, the Captain and the Winter Soldier return to S.H.I.E.L.D.

Yes, that’s right, no more annoying P.D.A on the battlefield. The wartime flirting is in the past.

Instead, a warming light that is called happiness-of-a-new-couple shines through every S.H.I.E.L.D agent’s soul. Not just the single guys but also some we-are-a-little-complicated couples.

Is it a good thing to set up Captain America and the Winter Soldier? (or Bucky, or Barns, or the Ghost Rider? He does not care about what people call him, but we all know which one is his favorite.)

People are not so sure about that.

But at least Hydra is happy. This time, they won.

And history proves it once again that _Natasha is truly our best._

* * *


End file.
